The cost to the home or business consumer of telephone calls depends on many factors, including the telephone company chosen as the carrier. Because of deregulation, the consumer is able to choose, on a per-call basis, the carrier for each call. Each carrier has a known pricing structure (which can change over time) and quality of service. However, choosing a minimum cost carrier for a single call or for a set of calls is difficult because of the huge variety of rate plans available and the high number of parameters in each.
Traditional per call carrier rate plans generally take the following form: location, destination and time dependent fixed charge for the first n (a small integer) minutes (or part there of) plus a location, destination and a time dependent rate for the remaining minutes or part thereof. Recently, discount calling plans with xe2x80x9csimplifiedxe2x80x9d rates have become popular. Examples include per minute rate within a specific geography (e.g., 10 cents a minutes for calls within the US), per minute rate within a specific geography depending on start time of call (e.g. 5 cents a minute for weekend and evening calls within the US), special per minute rates for calls to a specific number, set of numbers, or specific country special per minute rate to the xe2x80x9cnumber you call the mostxe2x80x9d each billing cycle, per minute rate plans that apply to calls within a specified geography lasting more than a certain amount of time (e.g. 20% off all calls over 20 minutes), calling cards or combination rate programs that prepay a fixed price for a specified number of minutes within a specified geography (e.g., 20 minutes US long distance free on a consumer""s conventional phone with the purchase of a cellular phone contract, or, in another plan, 60 minutes of cell phone service per month for $25 with time beyond the first 60 minutes costing $1 per minute).
A typical consumer may subscribe to one long distance carrier and a specific rate plan offered by that carrier, but may access other carriers and other rate plans through the use of calling cards or by dialing a specific number before placing each call. The consumer may also subscribe to more than one long distance carrier by having multiple phone lines (and multiple phone numbers) or through some other technique.
Corporate customers often have a primary carrier with specific rates negotiated annually. These rates are likely to be quite cost effective for the bulk of the corporation""s long distance calls but may not be the most inexpensive for certain calls, such as calls outside of normal business hours, calls of unusually long or short duration, or international calls. Thus corporate customers may also reduce total phone costs by careful selection of carrier on a call-by-call basis.
Various prior art systems require the cooperation of service providers or are not focused on end-users, and none teach or suggest the communication of one or more selections to a requester""s wireless or mobile device. Thus, a need remains for a method that identifies an optimum phone number for each call or set of calls, given the call parameters, and makes it easy for a wireless (also called mobile) device user to interactively select and use the number when the consumer is ready to make the call. The present invention addresses such a need.
The present invention is includes features for an interactive method that optimizes telephone usage for a call or set of calls, given the call criteria. In one example, a call optimizer makes it easy for a consumer to use a carrier that achieves this minimum cost when the consumer is ready to make the call.
An example of a method for optimizing telephone call usage includes the steps of: receiving a request from a mobile device to select one or more optimized numbers, the request including an un-optimized number and criteria upon which a selection is to be based; selecting the one or more optimized numbers based on the criteria, in response to the receiving step; and communicating a message to the mobile device, wherein the message includes the one or more optimized numbers selected.
Another example of a method for optimizing telephone call usage includes the steps of: receiving a request from a mobile device to select one or more phone numbers, the request including a pre-planned query and associated data upon which a selection is to be based; selecting the one or more phone numbers based on the query and the associated data, in response to the receiving step; and communicating a message to the mobile device, wherein the message includes the one or more phone numbers selected.
Yet another example of a method for optimizing telephone call usage includes the steps of: receiving a request from a remote device to select one or more optimized numbers, the request including an un-optimized number and criteria including a range of times for which the selection is to be based; selecting multiple optimized numbers based on the criteria and the range of times, in response to the receiving step; and interactively communicating the message to the remote device, a the message including the multiple optimized numbers selected and associated times within the range of times for each of the multiple optimized numbers.